A meeting about JEA turns into a bitter feud

Amid meeting over how much money City Hall could get by selling Jacksonville's electric and water utility to a private buyer, a feud erupted into the open between the city's top two officials.

David Bauerlein @DavidBauerleinNate Monroe @NateMonroeTU

In a public meeting Wednesday where a utility expert revealed that privatizing JEA could net City Hall between $3 billion and $6.4 billion, the cold war unfolding before the at-capacity crowd between Mayor Lenny Curry and City Council President Anna Brosche left people gobsmacked.

The quietly unfolding feud — the intensity of which has not been seen in years — marked a new nadir between the leaders of the city's executive and legislative branches, and it comes as officials are exploring the privatization of JEA — an effort the expert told city officials Wednesday requires unity from within the local government.

"Things have gotten too personal," a former City Hall official remarked.

The genesis of the Wednesday meeting was itself the result of a rift between Brosche and Curry.

Brosche rebuffed a request from JEA's chief executive officer to schedule a formal council meeting to discuss the utility's dollar value, in the process criticizing the pace of privatization talks and the mayor's handling of it.

So the mayor, infuriated by Brosche's criticism, called the meeting Wednesday himself.

Things quickly went south.

First, Brosche shut down JEA board Chairman Alan Howard as he tried to introduce Curry. She refused to recognize the mayor and let him speak.

"I wish it were different, but I don’t have an obligation to respect someone who doesn’t respect me," Brosche said after the meeting.

Then, as the meeting went on, Curry tweeted from his seat just a few feet away from Brosche, "It is unfortunate the Council President refused to call a public meeting to distribute a public document in a transparent manner. I called this meeting so all could get this document at the same time. I called this meeting for information purposes. No action to be taken."

Finally, after a utility-finance expert finished presenting his findings to the City Council, and Brosche took the microphone to ask an initial round of questions, Curry and his chief of staff stood up, walked out, and held a gaggle for reporters out in the City Hall atrium.

"I was in there to see the document," Curry said, adding that he called the meeting Wednesday so the report could be reviewed in a transparent way. He also rejected suggestions recently aired by some City Council members that he is pushing for the sale of JEA.

During the meeting, another revelation: Brosche ordered Brian Hughes, Curry's chief of staff, to lose his badge access to the City Council offices. He now has to follow "visitor protocol," which means he must be escorted through the main entrance to get to the back offices.

On Tuesday, Brosche's executive assistant filed a formal employee complaint against Hughes, alleging he "accosted" her and angrily complained about her boss. Hughes called the complaint baseless, and the mayor's office stood behind Hughes.

In the backdrop, the council chambers Wednesday were filled with JEA employees adamantly opposed to a sale. Some of them briefly applauded when Brosche refused to let Curry speak.

And no council members declared support for selling JEA, though many raised questions.

Meanwhile, calls paid for by an unknown group are making the rounds in the community, raising the suspicions of JEA employees and some council members.

The call alleges that JEA has "been mismanaged for years," which Brosche called disgusting and said whoever is behind these calls should face the public. The calls also claim JEA has the highest electric rates in the state, which it doesn't.

Michael Mace, managing director of Public Financial Management, a firm hired by JEA to assess all aspects of a potential sale, presented council members with a report on JEA's potential value to a private buyer. He also walked through the hydra-like series of steps, trade-offs and potential complications of selling Jacksonville's electric and water utility, which given its large size, Mace said would be one of the most complex of its kind in the United States.

The major revelation from the meeting was that JEA could be sold for a gross sale price ranging between $7.5-$11 billion. The city would net far less than that since JEA's debts and other obligations would have to be subtracted out before City Hall would get any money. The net amount ranged between $2.9-6.4 billion.

The report presented by Mace did not include one of the biggest liabilities on JEA's book, which is its unfunded pension liability. JEA's most recent report shows it owes $554 million for pensions earned by its workers, an amount that would be paid by city taxpayers if the money doesn't come from the utility's revenue.

Howard, the JEA board chairman, said after the meeting that the half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2016 "separately addressed" how to pay off the pension liability.

Beyond that, council members had pointed questions, and some doubts, about the rationale behind selling JEA.

City Councilman Finance Committee Garrett Dennis went a step further and slammed Howard. He told Howard point-blank that he should resign as board chairman. "In my opinion, it's been a debacle," he said.

Howard, who said he has no plans to resign, said he wasn't surprised by the questions during the meeting. "The reality is that this is a tough question for the city of Jacksonville and it's one that I anticipate will prompt a lot of robust debate," he said.

Other council members said they didn't hear a justification for making a change from a public utility to an investor-owned utility.

"I'm not sure what's broken, first of all," council member Tommy Hazouri said.

Councilman Danny Becton held his thumb and forefinger close together and said, "I really feel we're only getting this much of the story."

He said that before people get appraisals on their homes, they first sit down and decide that they want to sell their homes, but that part of the decision-making process seems to have been skipped over for JEA.

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